A Configurable Multi-Port Wire Antenna for Wideband Beamforming and Beam Scanning

In this letter, we introduce a design methodology to implement a generic multi-port aperture that can provide far more design flexibility compared to regular phased arrays. Using a small-scale abstraction of the multi-port network we develop a scalable circuit-level interpretation of the radiator that overcomes the need for full-wave design and simulation of the aperture. As a proof of concept, we develop an 11-port wired antenna prototype with the ability to adjust its center frequency while synthesizing a desired far-field pattern only by modulating the excitation phasors applied to the input ports. Measurements show the proposed multi-port antenna can directly synthesize, radiate, and steer the beam across 5−18GHz with a gain of around 8 dBi and a side lobe level of -9 dB. The proposed computationally efficient design approach and the measured prototype open the door to implementing large-scale multi-port configurable apertures.